Seconded. Armstrong AM transmitters are not supported, pain in the rear to live with. And you can't repair them. Get a BE AM1A or a Nautel J 1000 if buying a new transmitter, both are reliable, maintainable transmitters. The latter is for me the best Solid State new AM rig you can buy, And Nautel supports everything they ever built, Jeff Welton will take great care of you too.

I have been on different sites doing other work when 2ea X1000's blew up the first time they were turned on. I had originally thought that they were a good alternative but quickly learned that was not the case. Thankfully, none of my regular clients succumbed and bought one.

I actually think that I like the AM1a better than the J1000 but would probably go with the J1000. I have installed a couple of J1000's in the past year.

I have not dealt much with BE AM transmitter support, but we have a couple of BE solid state FM boxes. One of them was partially under water for a couple of weeks after a hurricane last fall. We got it working again but it shows signs of being a problem child for whatever time it has left.

BE was prompt about sending out replacement parts on that transmitter, although their modules are $$$$. Don't know what the long-term future is for BE transmitters, but their RF support seems to be reasonably solid.

I lean toward the AM-1A but haven't much experience with their support lately.

You shouldn't need it much. In my experience, kept clean and cool, their gear has run as reliably as anyone else's. Come to think of it, I have a couple of their transmitters, running in hot, humid and dusty buildings that I have no control over. So long as they're on the air, their owners don't let us do much, other than exchange the filters. Over the past 12 years, those rigs have run as well as the ones we've kept in air conditioned comfort, though I dread having to dig into them when their time comes.

My experience with BE's support, at least the very few times I've used it, have been easily as good as any others. I've done a couple of repair-exchanges, both delivered quickly and at prices I considered reasonable, given the time and cost to bench-service those assemblies. A power supply board suffered sufficient physical damage that I would have expected to toss it and buy a new one. They accepted it on the repair-exchange program as well. When that board failed, it took out a connector attached to a multi-wire harness. That took a bit longer to resolve, but they provided a new one, complete with all the proper wire labeling.

No complaints here about the BE AM1a either. Had one module have a problem, BE exchanged it for a repaired one for reasonable rates. Get the optional antenna tuning unit, a good grounding system, a good load, and clean power in a clean, cool transmitter site, they work, and are reliable as any engineer could ever want. Recommend the AM1a without reservations, a fine little AM rig.